Bathtub Art Museum
a museum dedicated to the art of the bath
About the Museum
The Bathtub Art Museum (BAM) is a not-for-profit museum dedicated to the bathtub in art. Artists have used the bathtub as a subject or in more cases, a supporting subject, in their creations since bathtubs as we know them today have become common pieces of furniture in the household.
BAM has a collection of 500 postcards with bathtub scenes. The postcard as an art form is particularly of interest to me, especially with the subject of the bathtub. Postcards are a public form of correspondence while bathing in a bathtub is considered a private experience. I find it interesting how the two come together.
BAM first debuted in 2003 in Portland, Oregon. Read more of the detailed history below! As curator and director of this museum and ongoing art project, there are no set rules and it will evolve as it sees fit. Any comments, or ideas are always very welcome. — Carye Bye, Museum Director
History of the Museum
Online Museum & Opening Show
In August 2003 the Bathtub Art Museum (BAM) debuted online at bathtubmuseum.org (archived here) with an opening event, The Bathtub Art Show, at The Know in Portland, Oregon. The museum was the natural step after a long-time dedicated collector (me!) had accumulated 200 postcards depicting scenes of the bath. Yes every single postcard features bathtubs filled with celebrities, babies, cranky cats, sleepy travelers and others. Sometimes there was just the bathtub alone or part of a beautiful bathroom on the postcard. The collection began for me in high school in the mid-1990s as fodder for an art zine I made with a friend but after that project, I kept collecting, and collecting, and collecting. In the era before Ebay I had to do all the footwork myself to brick & mortar boutiques and antique malls in hopes I'd score an addition to my collection.First Years of BAM
To prepare for my journey into being a public BAM director & curator (and the Bathtub Lady) I took a pilgrimage to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada to the "Great" International World Championship Bathtub Race in July 2003. A month later, the opening event, the Bathtub Art Show, featured two dozen Portland or local tub artists, an international mail art show of handmade bathtub postcards (hanging in a clear shower curtain above an antique tub!) and a bathtub movie film program including footage of the bathtub races. Two weeks later I organized a companion event, the Bathtub Art Fair during Portland's Alberta Street Fair. On the sidewalk outside The Know, we (my crew of volunteers and I) blew bubbles, played bathtub games, and wore colorful shower caps. My secret bathtub art collecting habit was a secret no more. John Foyston, a lifestyle and events writer for the Oregonian wrote up a feature recap of the Bathtub Art Museum's grand debut. (To read, see BAM press at bottom of the page).Bathtub Art Museum without Walls
Over the next decade I curated local bathtub art shows from the postcard collection at a variety of Portland venues including a barber shop, hotel, video rental store, coffee shop/café, book & comic store, the downtown main library and had a big show of 100 postcards from the collection at a plumbing shop! BAM also took part in the Keep Portland Weird festival at the Central Library and BAM's Fortune Telling Ducks were featured in SCRAP's Iron Artist carnival.The Backyard Bathtub Art House
In 2009, a local artist Brennan Conaway created an installation piece at the OnGallery in downtown Portland. It was a little windowless house that you could only enter through hole in the floor, but first you had to step into a water-filled bathtub. The interactive art piece was titled, The Island Vacation Where I left all my Troubles Behind. I had discovered the perfect structure for future BAM exhibits. To purchase the art piece, I started the 100 Foundation Friends of BAM. For $5, anyone could become a lifetime member.10 Years of BAM
After some great years with the backyard Bathtub Art Museum, and a second move to another backyard, I was moving again, so I gifted the Bathtub Art House permanently to the Cully Neighborhood and it became a community hub spot for local art shows (not necessarily bathtub related). For BAM's 10th anniversary, a new exhibit of handmade bathtub postcards was on view at the new location of the Bathtub Art House (NE 46th & Simpson in Portland, Oregon). Around the same time the online museum went offline as my interest in keeping online exhibits up-to-date had waned. The future was now open for a new BAM project.Bathtub Art Lounge
BAM only had small tubs in the collection. Besides postcards, the museum now had a collection of dollhouse sized tubs and other smaller items. In 2012 that changed; BAM acquired a bathtub couch! This is a cast iron tub that has been cut into a couch. The next phase was obvious: The Bathtub Art Lounge. I had some space at my new art studio under the Hawthorne Bridge in the Central Eastside. I hosted a few sporadic BAM shows but in 2015, the Zymoglyphic Museum moved into my studio space after relocating from California to Oregon. With new motivation to officially advertise First Friday open museum hours, I curated monthly exhibits again. One of our joint shows was called Rust & Lust! It was a great twofer small museum spot, Keeping Portland Weird in changing times.Bathlandia
In early 2016, BAM left Portland but not before one final big art show. Yes another handmade postcard show on the theme of Portland and Bathtubs. The postcards were so clever and fun— tubs full of microbrew beer and Voodoo doughnuts (ha!)—it was the perfect end to a 13 year run in the Portland, Oregon area.